Top 10 things to do on the Las Vegas Strip, ranked

The top five

1. Bellagio Fountains — free, runs every 15-30 minutes after 8pm, and still the best three minutes on Las Vegas Boulevard. 2. Sphere at the Venetian — buy tickets for a Postcard from Earth matinee if a residency isn’t playing; the 16K interior screen is unlike anywhere else. 3. Fremont Street Experience — technically Downtown but the Strip crowd underrates it; the Viva Vision canopy shows hourly after dusk are free. 4. The Cosmopolitan's Chandelier Bar — three floors inside a crystal light fixture. 5. Omega Mart at Area15 — Meow Wolf's grocery-store portal, tickets around $55.

These five hold up whether it's your first trip or your tenth. Fountains and Fremont cost nothing; Sphere and Omega Mart need booking a week ahead in peak season. Chandelier is a walk-in but hits its stride around 10pm.

Six through ten

6. High Roller observation wheel at The LINK Promenade — 550 feet, 30-minute rotation, best at sunset. 7. Neon Museum boneyard — actually Downtown, but the guided night tour with restored signs is the city's most honest history lesson. 8. Wynn Conservatory — free, changes seasonally, quieter than Bellagio's version. 9. Caesars Forum Shops — the ceiling sky and the spiral escalator are peak old-Vegas theatre. 10. AREA15's Illuminarium — immersive projection rooms that work better with kids than a residency show would.

I left off gondola rides at the Venetian (fine, overpriced), the Mob Museum (great, but Downtown deserves its own list), and volcano/pirate spectacles that no longer exist. Rank your day around Sphere or a residency; everything else slots in.